By Scars and Stories
by Selene Sokal
Summary: Only a few days after the events of my fic, By Steel and Starlight, the intrepid crew of the Beacon take a moment to gather over breakfast, talking scars and swapping stories.


**The idea for this story came from talking with danishvulkanhestan about his story "Sol Invictus," which was inspired by By Steel and Starlight. Check it out!**

* * *

"Gods dammit all," Yang swore, throwing her hand (just a pair of gods-cursed 7s) onto the table. "_All_ the gods dammit all and all your gods, too!"

Of course Pyrrha had called. Of course she used her mystic bullshit powers to know that Yang was bluffing. "Never playing with a depths-cursed space witch, not ever again. Should have learned that from my _mother,_" she spat.

"I just have a good hand," the redhead replied, sweetly and serenely, "I don't need Aura when I have luck." Oh yeah, and smugly, can't forget that one.

Yang scowled. "Bullshit. Ruby—is this bullshit? Tell me she's bullshitting!"

"Hmmmm?" Ruby looked up, and Yang felt a twinge of guilt knowing that her little sister had tried to stay up with them, especially when she had to be up early tomorrow. "Whazzit? Aura? No, no Aura," and then she stretched her arms as far as she could as she yawned, "S'bedtime for me."

"Might be a good idea for all of us," cut in the voice of their daring captain, and apparently self-appointed crew _dad_. He turned to Pyrrha. "Besides, I don't think Yang has anything more you can win from her."

The glower she gave Jaune would have been enough to get any of her mother's bandits to back off, but Jaune looked singularly unimpressed. What had happened to her badass, piratical image? "Whatever," she scowled, as she helped a sleepy Ruby up from her chair, "I still have my shoes, so I didn't _really_ lose tonight."

"I could have won them!" Pyrrha protested, then broke down in a fit of uncharacteristic giggles. Yang glanced back at her in confusion, at first thinking it had something to do with Jaune resting a hand on her shoulder, but then she realized the more likely cause

And the way Ren mixed drinks, not to mention the way he refilled drinks—a good man, that Ren—even made her wary about how much she should pace herself. Factor in the reality that a mystical, mythical, magical warrior woman probably didn't get smashed the way Yang regularly did, and the fact that Yang could count on Ren to try and tilt the odds in her favor, well, it's no surprise that beneath the serene mask of perfect discipline lay a very, very drunk girl.

Well, looking at the way she was nuzzling her cheek against Jaune's arm, she couldn't be too annoyed. "Alright Rubes," she said to her younger sister, "Guess the captain's got a point. Don't want to give your girlfriend a reason to get mad at me."

"She's so nice," Ruby replied sleepily.

Yang didn't have a real comeback to that, just a warm, peaceful smile as she helped her little sister back to her room.

* * *

Pyrrha tittered as Jaune helped her back to her room. Sure, she could walk just fine, just through her long-trained discipline even without her attunement to Aura, or she could simply purge the alcohol from her system, but… leaning on Jaune was better than walking back sober.

When they reached her room, he helped her out of her robes, and Pyrrha's heart _sang_ at the way he blushed and looked away, or, at least, tried to! "H-here," he mumbled, handing her her pajamas, "Let's get you to bed."

Though she wanted to tease Jaune, her drunk self also really wanted to feel the soft fabric of her pajamas on her skin, and so she quickly threw them on. Everything about their Atlessian quarters were luxurious to the extreme, the grandeur of a Royal Princess, of the girl who had once been their employer and now was their friend. She giggled a little at that. _Friend._ She had gone from three friends to seven in only a few weeks!

But the feeling of Jaune guiding her back to the bed reminded her unfocused brain that she had _other_ aims tonight. She and Jaune had kissed, they'd resolved to share quarters on the refurbished _Beacon_, but yet, they still hadn't done anything more than tender moments of affection. Something Blake was quick to tease her on.

He pulled the sheets up and tucked her in, their incredible softness immediately breaking Drunk Pyrrha's focus and the sweetness of the gesture making Lover Pyrrha _swoon_. It was made even worse as he kissed her forehead and whispered a quiet goodnight to her. But distracted as she was, she couldn't let him leave. "Stay," she said, grabbing his arm. She was trying to come across as seductive, only for the alcohol to make it sound girlish and petulant. Something about that was terribly funny, and she snorted with laughter. Which… might have ruined the effect she was hoping for.

Still, Jaune didn't struggle against her grip, and he looked down at her in such a soft way she couldn't help but give him a hopeful smile in return.

He sighed. "Pyrrha… you're drunk."

"No'm not!" she slurred.

He seemed to take a moment to decide how to answer that bald-faced lie. In the end, he simply decided to move past it. "You need to go to bed, Pyrrha," he replied, patiently.

"Pah!" she said, sticking out her tongue. "Stay!"

He gave a little chuckle. "Can I go fetch my pajamas from-"

"No! Shirtless!" she commanded. And Jaune gave her a little smile that sent her heart to a crazy place.

"Well, I guess there's some fights I'm just not going to win," he said, but he didn't sound unhappy about it. He pulled his shirt off, and her eyes eagerly strained for a glimpse of his naked chest.

Oh damn.

Captain had a _body_. Even in the dim light of her bedside lamp, she could tell that his abs were exactly what the doctor prescribed for a lonely girl who'd just come out of a lifetime oath of chastity. She couldn't wait to run her fingers up and down that, resting her head on his pecs and refusing to let go of him!

But as he moved closer to slip into bed with her, something that was making her heart beat like it was the _Juniper's_ engine core, he stepped a little more into the light and Pyrrha could suddenly see something she hadn't before.

His chest was covered in scars.

Long ones, small ones, all up and down his chest and abdomen, the purplish-pink color of scar tissue jigsawing across his chest. The faint ridges of skin displaced seemed to break his body apart like it was a planetary map, showing the mountain ranges that divided the regional governorships and fiefdoms.

The adrenaline cut through the alcohol fog in a flash. These were clean cuts, the kind that come from a weapon, not accidents or Grimm attacks, from a human being with lethal intent. She paled at the thought. When had he earned these? At the Academy? It had to have been before she'd met him, right? She was his bodyguard, even if not by title, and she had never allowed him to be placed in such danger for as long as she had been looking over him.

He slipped into the bed, sliding under the sheets and, without any of her prompting, wrapping his arm around her. It was nice, she thought, what she'd always wanted. But at the same time, she couldn't help but think about the scars.

There was something sorrowful about it. She had felt guilty about being a mystery for so long, for not telling Jaune about the Maidens, especially when he always spoke so openly to her about his past, his fears, his regret. And now she saw something on him that she had no story for.

As she snuggled in next to her captain, her beloved, feeling the pull of sleep drawing her away from all her thoughts, she wondered what could have happened to her kind, sweet Jaune?

* * *

Pyrrha sliced the grapefruit in half, the knife in her hand feeling as awkward as though it had been the weapon to cause what she'd seen last night.

Still, the fruit parted easily, and she sprinkled a little bit of sugar on it. They had access to some of the finest chefs in Atlas, but Pyrrha didn't feel comfortable in the lap of luxury. Her life had gone from monkish austerity to a humble hermitage, to the cramped quarters of a smuggling vessel. Fresh fruit was decadence enough for her. Fresh fruit _and_ coffee. She had always loved the coffee Jaune brewed on the _Juniper_, but oh, this was something else!

As she held the cup in her hand and inhaled the aroma, she heard the soft footfalls of Blake coming down to the kitchen. "Well, this is an odd sight!" she proclaimed, cheerfully, "Aren't you usually up at the crack of dawn? Or—don't tell me—_long night?_ You and Jaune?"

There was too much eagerness in her voice for Pyrrha's liking. Yang's interest in Jaune, as well as Ren, Nora, herself, Roman Torchwick, possibly Weiss's dad and certainly his Prime Minister, was simple attraction and desire, something personal and something Pyrrha understood, even if she felt it was more than a little uncouth. Blake's interest in Jaune was like a… she wasn't sure. It was not personal, but not impersonal. It was more like a strange investment in his relationships, like a reader with her favorite character, and Pyrrha had no idea how to handle that whatsoever.

So she went with mild disapproval. "Tried to keep up with your girlfriend last night."

"Huh," Blake replied, "And let me guess: there was some gambling, too?"

"Yang tell you about it?"

She shook her head as she entered a breakfast request for the kitchens into the touchpad they had for their quarters. "Just putting two and two together. At least she still had her shoes when she came back last night."

She chuckled a little, wondering if they'd coordinated that or if it was just a coincidence. But Blake gave her a concerned look. "Is something wrong?"

"I..." she wanted to wave it off, to deflect her attention, but from the look Blake was giving her, she did seem genuinely worried for her. She decided to answer with honesty. "I didn't know Jaune had so many scars."

Blake's eyes got a little wider at that. "Well, first of all, congrats on seeing him naked, but-"

"Just shirtless!" she quickly corrected, feeling like she was a teenager all over again as she blushed.

She got a grin in return. "Well, it's still enough to make Yang jealous."

"Jealous of what?" Yang asked as she entered the room. Pyrrha was starting to suspect they timed this. "And did you order breakfast for me, babe?" she asked, giving Blake a peck on the cheek.

"Course I did," Blake answered sweetly, and with her own quick peck, "Salmon Benedicts for the both of us—I'm telling you, you'll never want anything else for breakfast after you've had this."

Yang gave a little fist pump as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "Sweet! Though I'm starting to think you're just into any meal that has fish in it," she teased, "But don't change the subject, what's the gossip and why's it about me?"

"It's not-"

But she was cut off by Blake. "Jaune's apparently all scarred up."

"Oooh," Yang's eyes lit up at that. "Is it hot? Make him look like a bad boy?"

"What? No!" Pyrrha shot back.

Mistake. Yang laughed as she took a seat next to her girlfriend at the table. "Yeah, you're the sweet, virginal type, you probably like 'em as blushing and innocent as you are. And he's ripped, too, I bet he looks like some kind of hot pirate captain, taking what he wants, plundering innocent Maidens..."

This wasn't a battle she could win. So Pyrrha just rolled her eyes as Yang and Blake tittered at her. "I'm just… I'm worried for him. He had so _many_ scars that it had to have been something-"

"Jaune doesn't have any scars?" came the curious voice of Nora Valkyrie. Pyrrha turned to her friend, still in her pajamas, as she entered the room. "And I would know, I used to sleep with him back when we first started traveling together."

It took all of Pyrrha's restraint not to choke on her coffee. More restraint that Yang had evidently, as she chokingly spat hers across the table.

Fortunately, Ren was there, as always, to clarify Nora's point. "She means it in the most literal sense. When we first became a crew, after Montglenn, sometimes, when I was on the helm and she had… bad dreams, Jaune would stay with her."

"It was a lot tougher when it was just us three," Nora added sadly, and now it took all of Pyrrha's composure not to pull her into a hug. "But," and now a hint of her usual cheeriness crept back into her voice, "I've seen most of Jaune by now, and other than the fancy birthmark on his butt, there's nothing that interesting on him."

Pyrrha made a mental note to keep an eye out for that. "No, I saw them. They were... extensive."

"Could be a mechanical accident," Yang suggested, "Knew a guy who got his chest carved up when a compressor line burst and the cable slashed him up good. And when your ship's the _Juniper..._" she let her implication dangle.

"The _Juniper_ would _never_ hurt Jaune!" Nora furiously protested. "And if she did, I'm sure she's very, very sorry!"

Ren seemed to realize that his bristling companion might be liable to start swinging, so he passed her the touchpad. As Nora quickly swiped through different breakfast options, _oohing_ at how fancy they were, her anger seemed to dissipate as swiftly as it came. He glanced to Pyrrha as he poured himself a glass of orange juice. "So, it must have happened some time around or after we met you, and yet, it was something none of us learned about, so it had to have been something quiet..."

"Assassins?" Blake ventured, "Smuggling is dangerous work and maybe a client tried to pull one one on him? I know the Fang's had to silence a courier before."

Ren shook his head. "If it was work related, he wouldn't keep it from us."

"He is kind of a moron," Yang suggested, "So maybe he would?"

Their discussion was interrupted as the front door opened and an excited Ruby burst in, trailed slightly behind by Jaune and Weiss. "It's official!" Ruby shouted, waving a sheaf of papers in her hand, "We're now all the proud joint-owners of _dun-duh-duh-dun!_ The _BEACON!_" Yang whooped and they all applauded. It was a little nostalgic, to realize that the _Juniper_, the place where so much of her life had changed, and so much for the better, no longer, officially, existed. But the _Beacon_ meant a new beginning, with a new mission and a future untied from the debts of the past. But Ruby, it seemed, wasn't done. She beamed as she proclaimed to them, "And I got to do all the paperwork!"

"It was her idea, not mine!" Jaune was quick to clarify. "I'm not foisting work off her like a-"

Weiss cut him off before his explanations made things worse. "I can vouch. Ruby felt it was 'good luck' to have the youngest of the crew be the one to, officially, name the ship."

There was a buzz at the door signalling food had arrived. Pyrrha remained impressed with how quickly and fluidly the staff of the palace responded to their requests, and she worried, a little, about what it would be like going back to dense, flavorless ship food, where a single loaf of fresh bread was unimaginable luxury.

Though, perhaps, as she watched Blake, Yang, and Nora set into their meals, practically inhaling them, perhaps it could be good for them to learn some restraint and balance things out a little.

Jaune sat down next to her, his fingers quickly interlacing with hers and giving them a quick squeeze that set her heart aflutter. She'd accepted, so very long ago, that this wasn't for her, that her life would be defined by the bonds of sisterhood rather than the touch of a lover, and it never failed to make her feel wildly out of her depth. It conjured images of a different life, a different Pyrrha, who would have gone through all this when she was much younger. That Pyrrha would have known the ins and outs of romance and how to manage a crush.

But this was nice, too. She squeezed his hand back, enjoying the warm tingle of his soul in the flow of Aura. He was a good man, and even if it was sometimes a struggle, it was a struggle he'd never give up on. If he didn't feel confident to talk about his past with her, she'd respect that and help him reach the day when he could.

"So," he started, oblivious to Pyrrha's thoughts, "whatcha been talking about? Sounds like we interrupted something when we came in?"

The reflexes of a Maiden were second to none. And even amongst the Maiden's, Pyrrha was a prodigy. Unmatched in personal combat, she had the speed to outfight a dozen men and even deflect blaster fire with a boarding sword. And yet, all that talent was nothing compared to Yang Xiao Long seeing an opportunity to put her foot in it.

"What you look like shirtless," she said, as normally as if she was discussing the weather. Jaune's eyes boggled, and he seemed to choke on a response, so Yang kept talking. "Apparently, you're _quite_ the looker..."

Blake gave Yang a playful slap. "Yang! No ogling the captain at the breakfast table! Only Pyrrha gets to do that!" she said, giving Pyrrha a glance laden with innuendo. Pyrrha buried her face in her hand.

"So this is what the next few months are going to be," Weiss replied, dryly. "Ruby, would you care to accompany me to somewhere that's not in the company of your sister?"

Nora, however, seemed put out by the suggestion. "Aww, but we were talking about scars!" she said, pointing to Weiss, "I'd bet you'd have a story there!"

"Nora!" Ren scolded, but Weiss raised a hand. "It's alright," she said, "Yes, I have a scar over my eye. From a White Fang attack when I was a child. It was... painful, yes, extremely painful, at the time," her voice took on a soft, pained edge, "but more so from just knowing that someone wanted to kill me. The scar... my father wanted me to treat it with plastic surgery, but I refused. It's always been a reminder that my life is never just politics, and with the injury... it was my own fault, honestly." She gave a half-laugh at herself. "If I had stayed with my guards instead of slipping away from them in the chaos, I would never have been even near the blast. I must have aged Commander Ebi a decade that day, but it serves as a reminder that I can't always take things into my own hands, and that sometimes, the best thing I can do is to let myself be protected."

Yang looked at her skeptically. "Yeah… except you did that exact thing again when you hired me to help you escape your security detail and escort you across the galaxy into the middle of a White Fang plot. How many decades did _that_ age this Ebi guy?"

Weiss shrugged, her voice now stiff. "I don't know; I plan on delaying that meeting with him for as long as I possibly can."

Blake, though, had held a sympathetic look for her from the moment she first heard it was an attack from the Fang. "If it- if it makes you feel any better, the woman who planned that attack... she never intended for you to get hurt. And she does feel remorse for it."

"Oh no, Blake," Ruby dramatically gasped, "it wasn't you, was it?"

"What? No! I was a kid back then!" she protested. But as she looked to Weiss, her voice softened, carrying a faint strain of sorrow for all the ugliness of this conflict, "But, it might be good to remind some of the leadership that they haven't always been proud of what they've done."

But it seemed that Yang wasn't about to let the mood drop. She scoffed, "Pfft, I got a way better story for _THIS_ beauty," she yanked up her shirt, revealing a mottled patch of skin on her abdomen. "You'll _never _guess who gave me this one, not in a million-"

It was Ren, of all people, who interrupted. "Your mother. She stabbed you after you challenged her leadership, and it never healed right because your Uncle Qrow, who saved you, didn't really know how to use the first aid pack correctly." He sipped his juice, nonplussed at Yang's shocked look. "You have told me this story every time you've gotten to your third drink."

Glaring, she shot back. "Well… maybe I do, but dream on if you think you know _all_ my stories!"

"At five drinks, you tell me your first kiss was with a girl named Vernal. She was using you to get closer to your mother and your biggest regret is that you think she wasn't-"

"Okay, okay!" Pyrrha was impressed to see that Ren could make Yang blush. He seemed to have a slight twinge of a smile crossing his face as well for it. "But this was supposed to be about Jaune, so open up, loverboy—what's with your scars?"

"Oh!" he blushed, suddenly back at the center of attention. "It's not.. It's really not much of a story." But from looking around the room, Pyrrha could tell nobody was buying it. He looked at her sheepishly, and she tried giving him a look that suggested she wouldn't judge him, and he could take as much time as he needed.

That was not, however, a universally held opinion.

Ruby, for instance, had questions. "Like, are there a lot of them? O-or are they really gruesome? Oh! Did someone carve their initials in your chest?"

"Pick that one!" Nora shouted, "Do the initials one!"

For all their experience with Nora, Jaune still had to shoot her an incredulous look at saying that. But he also seemed to accept that he wouldn't get out of this without giving some kind of explanation. "Well, um, you might remember from Torchwick Station, Neo and I, we, heh," he laughed in reminiscence as Pyrrha's blood ran cold, "We used to date, for a little while. And, you know her, she's a little… rough."

Pyrrha was horrified, and looking around the table she was not alone. Even Yang seemed to have no teasing for this moment, Blake seemed like she couldn't make sense of it, and Ruby, worst of all, clearly wasn't understanding what that could even mean.

Nora slammed her fists down. "Jaunathan Magorious Arc!"

"That is _not_ my name!"

She wasn't even slightly slowed by his objection. Nora actually sounded _serious_, something Pyrrha couldn't remember if she'd ever heard Nora like that. "You are _not_ leaving it at that. What the _hell_ could- how the hell did you think any of that was- I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

"I mean! She only really cut me when she _missed_," he said, as though that made _any _of this even the least bit less horrifying, particularly considering _the number of scars on his chest!_ "We mostly had a normal relationship! She just, you know, liked knives."

"Is there any reason," Weiss's voice was extraordinarily calm as she spoke, "you thought you couldn't mention this fact to me before I gave her an _administrative position_ over an _Atlessian Barony?_"

"Everything we did was consensual!"

And then, of course, that was the moment Blake decided to speak up. "Huh, so you're into strong, dangerous women? I can see it. Yeah, I can see it. Boy, you and Pyrrha are going to make an _interesting_ couple, aren't you?"

"Wait," Ruby said, slowly trying to piece together the story, "I don't get it? She used the knives to-"

Yang leapt up from her seat, "Okay, I think we're done here and done with this conversation, and Ruby _doesn't need to know more!_"

"I'm not a child, Yang!"

The table had broken into a full rancor at that moment, with Jaune trying to defend himself, in vain, Yang and Ruby arguing about whether she was old enough to know what knife play was, and Blake with a boatload of questions for her that Pyrrha was not in the least about to answer.

So Pyrrha decided to change tactics. "Ruby," she asked, her voice, as attuned to Aura as any other part of her, cutting through the air, "I have to ask: do you have any scars?"

Ruby looked at her curiously. "I- I guess I don't?"

"Oh, wow, yeah," Yang let out a low whistle, "Ruby, you always used to heal really fast. I thought it was weird on the _Qrow_, but, you know, I didn't know how fast people are supposed to heal, especially young people. Just never put two and two together," she marveled.

Pyrrha nodded, sagely. "I started my training so young that I don't even remember a time when I couldn't heal like I do now, so: no scars. But I was wondering if you might have picked up any, or if you had, if your Aura might have healed them. I suppose you were just always attuned enough to heal like that."

"Wow," Ruby marveled, but then a note of wild interest came into her voice. "If I cut myself right now, how quickly would I heal? Is it just so long as I don't die, I'll come back from it? And how do you know that? Like, if I slit my throat, could I just test it-"

"Okay Rubes," Yang, fortunately stepped in, placing a calming hand on her curious sister's shoulder. "Let's not test your limits when the only Option B is you dying."

But then an unexpectedly soft voice cut in. "I have some scars, too. On m-my back."

Pyrrha had to look around the room. Sure, she recognized the voice, but she almost couldn't believe the sad, haunting tone in her voice she was hearing. It was Nora, her eyes locked on something past the middle distance.

Ren had already put an arm around her. "You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to," he whispered.

"I do," her voice said, quavering, but with a quiet resilience. "I want to talk about it. In the camp, in Montglenn," she swallowed, thickly, and Pyrrha's spirits sank. This wasn't the first time she'd heard stories from the Montglenn concentration camp, but most of what she'd heard had been from Jaune, and he relied more on allusion and implication than blunt explanation. Blake had described it as a "living hell" from the stories of Faunus prisoners, and it was where Adam Taurus had learned his zealotry. What Nora had experienced there was something she didn't like to talk about, but, well, it seemed Pyrrha was about to learn. "I didn't take to prison well. I fought back, I didn't let them push me around. And I… I think they saw me as a target, like they needed to break my spirits to prove that they could break _anybody._"

The room was silent, Ren gently gripped Nora's shoulders as she spoke, but the other six just sitting, still and silent. They had all gone through traumas to get here. Pyrrha, after all, had lost her entire world to Cinder's betrayal. And since then, they'd all risked death a half-dozen times for one another. Sharing their stories... it had become a part of their lives, their community. And they all tried to be the best they could for Nora.

"They had me flogged." Her voice was stark and emotionless. "They had the whole camp watch. And they wouldn't… wouldn't let me get treatment afterwards. But when that didn't work..." her eyes became unfocused, like what she was seeing was the Montglenn camp and not her friends around her, as horror now rose in her voice, "t-they, they _took Ren away!_"

Nora broke down into desperate tears as Ren pulled her into a tight hug, whispering something Pyrrha couldn't hear. Once, on a frontier planet, she had witnessed a flogging. She could still picture the flog, a scourge with a dozen strands, each tipped with jagged metal. The way it twisted in the air and the cruel _slice_ of it's swing. A captured runaway slave was being lashed until her back was nothing but jagged, bloody lines, no skin to be seen. She couldn't imagine the pain, and had to look away, to bury her face in Cinder's shoulder. She was only a child, then, not even 14. But still, hearing Nora tell it, having her closest companion taken as hostage and threatened for her compliance… the scourge sounded like nothing in comparison. Pyrrha could only begin to imagine the pain she must have felt.

But when she regained her composure, she said in a quiet voice, "And that's when I met Jaune." She had looked up, her eyes now meeting Jaune's, but they had a light in them. A light of hope. "And he told me I had been brave and he was proud of me, of my courage. And that, if I worked with him… he'd get me and Ren out, and that he'd n-never, never," she started to sniffle, "I'd never be left alone like that again."

She felt through her Aura as Jaune _plunged_ into guilt, the still-fresh memory of his betrayal written across his soul. "Nora… I'm so, _so_ sorry," he croaked.

"I k-know," she said, "I know. I'm so sorry, too, but I was so _scared._" Pyrrha held Jaune's hand tightly, wishing she could help them both, that her powers to heal injuries could heal the ones on the inside. But she couldn't. All she could do was to be there for them, to listen and share their pain.

That was all any of them could do. Weiss was struggling to hold back tears; Ruby was quietly bawling. She knew Ruby and Nora were close, just as Ren and Yang were. That these two, who'd been through so much, had been able to forge bonds in such a short time with their new comrades… it meant all the world to Pyrrha.

She got up, taking Jaune with her, and went over to Nora. The girl looked at her, uncomprehendingly, until Pyrrha pulled her into a tight hug. She felt Ren and Jaune follow suit, as Nora started to shake with emotion. She whispered to her, "We're here for you. Always. No matter what," and Nora couldn't stop the tears. Neither could Pyrrha.

Soon, she felt the rest of their companions crowd around them, enveloping her with a sense of protection and unity. For a few seconds, they held it, with no sound other than Nora's faint sniffles.

As they finally let go, it was Weiss who broke the silence. "I… hope that this was cathartic, for you. For all of us."

Jaune nodded as he cleared his throat, though his voice still had some leftover hoarseness from his earlier emotions. "Our mission is not just to stop Salem, not just to protect the powers that already exist. We do this to make a better galaxy." She felt her speech was as much to himself as it was to all of them. "For humans and Faunus, for those at the fringes, for the orphans, for the lost. It's a daunting task, but…" and he looked around the room, from the Crown Princess of Atlas, to his co-pilot, to the last two Maidens in the galaxy, to the White Fang defector, to the bodyguard, to the engineer, "I don't think I could ask for a better crew to do it in all the galaxy. We can do this, even if we do have our work cut out for us."

That they did, Pyrrha thought, but it wasn't a burden any of them would face alone. She looked to her captain, to her beloved, to the man who had found her in her exile and told her that she didn't have to moulder in her grief and loss alone, but could live again. She squeezed his hand. What scars they might have, what histories might be written upon their skin, there were deeper truths written in their souls, shared amongst them all.

It wouldn't be long now, before they were thrust back into the fire. To face Salem and the Fang and who knew what else. But against whatever they faced, she knew, they'd face it together.


End file.
